Arsenal v Aston Villa F.A. Cup 4th Round Post-Match Thread

[Mellin]

I'm already counting down the days until Hutton's contract expires (as no fucker will buy him off us). One of the worst players I've ever seen. Genuinely.

[Dave Clark Five]

The 5th May can't come quick enough!  Hopefully RL will see sense and get rid of the Big Eck?  No matter how it's dressed up we should have won today.  He keeps picking the same defence week in week out. 

No he doesn't.

[myf]

What defence would you play? they are shite but there ain't much of an alternative and no one is going to take them off our hands. he's  made a boob with Hutton that's for sure but I'll give him the summer to try and sort it

[barrysleftfoot]

  Did'nt see the game,saw we was 2-0 up at H/t, the next timei looked we was 3-2 down.

  Well where do we go from here?Personally i think the manager has been left in the lurch.We sold 2 players in the summer, and bought 3 players for about £15m, we need that £25m now.

  At least 1 F/B if not 2, at least one new C/H, and at least 1 C/M.Give McL the opportunity to fail, let him spend some money, and then judge him.

  Another stupid decision from Dunne, Ramsey going nowhere, Dunne brings him down.No protection for a poor defence, no pace in Central midfield, not enough "stickability" up front.

 Personally if we have no money. i would sell Bent and start again.

[Dave Clark Five]

It needed us to go at them but we didn't or couldn't. That game was never in the bag at 2-0 and you would be fools for thinking it was.

[TheSandman]

The problem with our defence is that there are a lack of options. They are all in a comfort zone. Aside from Cuellar the only options we have are moving Clark away from where he's needed in midfield or playing a number of untried youngsters.

In an ideal world we'd have fucked some of them off in the summer or now in January but we don't have the money and clubs won't be knocking our door down to take them off our hands. We'd also have to hope we didn't sign more players like Hutton who is starting to look like a mistake.

[hawkeye]

It needed us to go at them but we didn't or couldn't. That game was never in the bag at 2-0 and you would be fools for thinking it was.

It needed us to hold them for at least 15  minutes, we could not even manage that

[ez]

I hate this season.

[hawkeye]

Hutton is useless, terrrible one of 2 AM buys

[London Villan]

I think if we'd held them ten minutes then we'd have won.

Disrupt play, slow it down, stop hoofing it, keep the ball, make a substitution, anything to slow down Arsenals predictable onslaught... the fans would have been on their back and that would have probably been it!

[VinnieChase84]

If we're all honest we all
Saw that happening at half time! The problem is how can we all are it a
AM didn't/doesn't!? All we had to do was hold out for
15mins and the game would have been ours. Granted we have the worst fullbacks
In my living memory of following Villa (89) but the manager
Should not be playing these fools!!
Our season is over in Januray again, I feel even more let down
Cause as we all know we have faith and today u just thought 'maybe'
Arsenal were the worst arsenal in a long long time! We certainly missed the boat today!

[ez]

Hutton is useless, terrrible one of 2 AM buys

Thats where we could put an untried youngster and not miss anything. Awful signing.

[Somniloquism]

It needed us to go at them but we didn't or couldn't. That game was never in the bag at 2-0 and you would be fools for thinking it was.

With our defence, no game is in the bag. But if we hadn't given Arse the space around the box in the first 10-15 mins of the second half, we could have got something from this. When they had taken the lead they just played possession football and sat back a bit because they knew we didn't have the players to hurt them apart from on the break.

But we did create a couple of chances after that we didn't finish. Keanes airshot, Ireland bottling the responsibility and passing to a double marked Bent, Clark / Gardner tame effort at the keeper.

[ez]

It needed us to go at them but we didn't or couldn't. That game was never in the bag at 2-0 and you would be fools for thinking it was.

Did anyone think it was in the bag? Is anyone suprised we collapsed?

[SoccerHQ]

I've been sitting here for 10 minutes thinking of something to say which hasn'tbeen summed up in previous posts.

How can we throw away a 2 goal lead?? Is it the manager, the players or both? I suspect the latter - a manage who can't motivate and players who can't be bothered??

Depressing!

It's a club disease.

We gave a 3 goal lead away under MON once remember.

We also have given 2 goal leads away under Houllier, Little, O'dreary and Gregory.